Alejandro González Iñárritu was in talks to direct back in December, but scheduling issues forced him to drop out. The filmmaker is currently in post-production on his first comedy feature, Birdman.

Callie Kloves, the daughter of Harry Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves, wrote the script, based on Rudyard Kipling's classic 1894 story. The plot is set in India, centering on a young orphaned boy named Mowgli, who has been raised by wolves in the jungle, and befriends a bear named Baloo and a black panther named Bagheera, while battling the nefarious tiger Shere Khan. Steve Kloves is also producing with Ron Howard.

It isn't known when production will begin, but the Warner Bros. project is also going up against Disney's adaptation of The Jungle Book, which Jon Favreau is directing from a screenplay by Justin Marks. Since the Rudyard Kipling book is in the public domain, both studios are free to pursue their own adaptations.